


Back of Beyond

by Seascribe



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fighter Pilots, Friendship, Gen, Homesickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 15:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cottia and Esca bond during quiet moments on the Rebel Base on Hoth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back of Beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Albiona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albiona/gifts).



“Rogue 6 to Echo 1,” Esca says into his comm. “Everything looks good out here. Nothing to see but a couple of wampas. Tell the next foot patrol to keep a sharp eye out.”

He clicks off the comm, and Cottia shivers theatrically. “Glad that won’t be me. I just can’t get used to this cold!”

“Space is colder,” Esca says. “That doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“Not with a good firefight to keep warm,” Cottia agrees, shooting him a wolfish grin. “That’s different and you know it. But all of this snow and wind and those wampas—I won’t miss it!“

“No telling how much longer we’ll be stationed here,” Esca cautions. “Don’t get too excited!”

“Oh, come on, Esca,” Cottia cries. “You can’t tell me you don’t like thinking about home. Or at least somewhere warmer.”

“The good times at home, sure,” Esca says, and Cottia immediately feels guilty for making him think of the past, of what the Empire had done to his family. “No, it’s okay,” he says, when she tries to apologise. “I do think about it, to remind myself why I decided this would be a good idea. Helps keep me warm.”

Cottia smiles. “Yeah. I miss the plants, more than anything else. The grass and trees and flowers. That, and the equinoids.”

“Tauntauns just aren’t the same, are they?” Esca says. “For me, it’s the food. My mam, she used to—she was a great cook. MRE’s will keep you going, but it’s my mam’s cooking I dream about.”

“But you’d do it just the same, if you had the choice again,” Cottia says, not really a question. They’re coming up on the base now, thrusters easing up for the landing.

“Of course,” Esca says. “Just like you would.” He doesn’t say anything else as he eases the fighter into her berth, as they unstrap their flight belts and clamber out.

Cottia takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair. “Dinner in half an hour,” she says. Sometimes, Esca doesn’t like going to the mess hall, being surrounded by all those people and their noise, and she’ll bring his MRE’s back to their dorm, that they share with a couple of mechanics from Coruscant. He needs a lot of alone time, Esca does, which Cottia doesn’t understand, because except for her, he is alone, and even with her, he runs pretty deep, keeps a lot of himself hidden away. Cottia would go stark raving mad if she tried to live the way Esca does, all locked-down that way. But he’s a good friend—her best friend, probably—and she tries to give him what he needs, even when she doesn’t understand it.

Esca flashes her a crooked grin. “Save me a seat. I want to check a couple of things with her engine.” If he wanted her to stick around and help, he would have said, so Cottia tosses him a sloppy salute and goes to do what passes for washing up out here in the frozen arse-end of the universe.

Tonight’s MRE is rehydrated spaghetti, and Cottia’s pretty sure that’s tauntaun sausage in the sauce. But you have to eat to stay alive out here, and so she finishes her plate. Esca shows up late, still in his flight suit, hands smeared with engine grease.

“You get her running sweet again?” Cottia asks through her mouthful of spaghetti, and Esca makes a face at her.

“As sweet as she’ll be, without new parts,” Esca says. Down the table, Wedge snorts.

“Don’t hold your breath for that one,” he says. “You want a second pair of eyes and hands on her workings, just let me know.”

Esca gives him a brusque nod and turns back to his spaghetti. That’s pretty friendly for Esca, at least with people who aren’t Cottia, and Wedge knows better than to take it personally.  
Someone pulls out a beat up old synth-viol and calls for the mess tables to be cleared so they can dance. There’s not often time for this kind of frivolity on base, but sometimes something just has to give. Cottia raises her eyebrows at Esca. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to refuse, but then he shrugs and grabs her hand, whirling her into the space opening up in the centre of the mess-hall.

There’s too much work to do tonight for the dancing to last long, but while it lasts, Cottia forgets how cold and dark it is outside the base, and how very far they both are from home. Esca spins her faster and faster, his grin bright like the sun she hasn’t seen for weeks.

 _Chwaer fach,_ he calls her, and _annwyl_ , and Cottia holds on tight and pretends that she has gone home.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Chwaer fach_ : little sister  
>  _annwyl_ : beloved
> 
> (Welsh translations reluctantly taken from Google Translate).


End file.
